Early, high-quality prenatal care is critical to reducing risks for complications of pregnancy or birth and improving birth outcomes.

In 2021, 71% of births were to women who began prenatal care early, up from 61% in 2016. This makes Arkansas 46th in the nation on this indicator and 6 percentage points lower than the national rate, at 77%. In 2019, the latest year for which racial/ethnic data was available, whites (73%) had higher rates of utilizing prenatal care than Blacks (65%), Hispanics (61%) and Asians (52%). Rates increased steadily for all ethnicities since 2014.

Researchers have uncovered a number of factors contributing to generally lower rates of early prenatal care among mothers of color. These include: socioeconomic characteristics like education and family income; maternal health and characteristics of pregnancies (such as maternal age and number of previous pregnancies); types of insurance coverage - whether women are covered by Medicaid, private insurance, or have no coverage; and the location of prenatal care facilities - in physicians' offices and public health clinics. One study found socioeconomic differences were responsible for roughly half the gap -- pregnant women with lower incomes and levels of formal education often do not have the resources necessary to obtain care early and often - but that public programs such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children increased access to care.

National data is from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). State and county data are from the Arkansas Department of Health. The CDC and Arkansas identify individuals by their race (white, black, etc.) separately from their ethnicity (Hispanic or non-Hispanic). So the totals for these categories cannot be added together, as people show up in both a racial and ethnic group. Due to Arkansas' change to a new birth certificate form in 2014 (the 2003 U.S. Standard Certificate of Live Birth) used to collect this information, prior years of data are not comparable and excluded from the charts above. Aggregate national numbers for 2014 exclude Connecticut, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. Rhode Island is included in 2015, and all states are included in 2016.